Those good ol' smokin' days

Brink Lindsey has written an interesting book, The Age of Abundance, about how mass affluence (thanks be to capitalism) has transformed the way we live. He regularly disinters ads of the past on his blog to show how American social attitudes have dramatically changed. Ciggie adverts like the one below are fun: unlike this early example of health-obsession.

Robbie Millen

Comments

[Munin]

"He regularly disinters ads of the past on his bog"

I'm usually content to read the paper.

[David Moss]

A POLITICAL PSYCHIATRIST WRITES:
In 2007 a case very interesting presented. A man we shall call "Dr R". Until a year before, he had been spoken of as a potential leader of his party and Prime Minister. Then somehow left him this aura. Warum?

It was evident that in the year leading up to his referral, he was always angry. So much so that he was known even in the circle of his friends* as "Dr Demento".

I struggled with this case. I investigated his relationship with his mother and drew the blank. Was he of his father jealous? Again, a blank. I scoured the records of native American folklore and came up with … nichts. Apart from the fact that he was a politician, he appeared to be quite sane, not unintelligent and able to relate to everyday pastimes.

It will be a lesson to me always to think outside my box. Musing on the case one day with Mildred, the woman who cleans the consulting rooms, she laughed. "Why has he lost his aura of power? Why always is he angry so? Up he has given the smoking. Is the Pope a Catholic?", Mildred asked me.

Foolish me. The smoking. Of course. As to the Pope, that is my next case.

* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article1901565.ece

[David Moss]

Agents of the Smokers Liberation Front have removed it now but, earlier today, the Telegraph website had this story:
"Give up smoking, get free broccoli -- People who quit smoking [obviously written by an American] or lose weight [... a Californian] could be rewarded [... a capitalist] with fresh vegetables [... a lunatic] or a discounted gym membership [... attempted murder] under Tory 'health miles card' plan"

A focus group of pro-smoking broccoli-haters was quickly assembled and voted this policy somewhere up at the BARKING end of the scale.

There was a general feeling that this isn't so much social responsibility as an over-wheening sense that someone knows best. Often the result of eating too much broccoli.

[David Moss]

Vicar's unholy smoke stunt fails*:
"A vicar who lit his pipe in a Kent police station as a protest against the smoking ban has failed in his attempt to get himself arrested".

God, surely, smokes a pipe. The Reverend Anthony Carr, of East Peckham, is right to test the power of His intervention.

He has already made His displeasure plain through the floods and today's rise in interest rates.

Watch out next for a plague on the Cabinet of all the Talents.

God's smokers currently make a net contribution of about 7bn talents p.a. to the Exchequer. If that contribution falls, there will be much wailing in the land. "You have been warned" (Benson & Hedges, 5 xx1).

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* http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/kent/6271300.stm

[David Moss]

SMOKE-ON-TRENT [1]

The Smokers' Liberation Front strikes again:

"Stoke-on-Trent has temporarily escaped the ban on smoking in enclosed public spaces which came into force across England and Wales on July 1 ... Due to an administrative error, officials are powerless to stop people from lighting up in the city's 400 pubs and bars."

As does the invisible hand [2], 'Smoking ban causes brewers' droop':

"JD Wetherspoon ... issued a profit warning in May, admitting that full-year earnings would come in below analysts’ expectations, and sending its shares down 6 per cent ...

Remarkably, cigarette sales dipped by only 2 per cent when Ireland went smoke-free — and BAT is still rated a buy by Merrill Lynch and Evolution. The company is even diversifying into smokeless products such as snuff ..."

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1. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/07/11/nstoke111.xml

2. http://www.spectator.co.uk/archive/business/37095/smoking-ban-causes-brewers-droop.thtml

[David Moss]

WARTS AND ALL
Simon Heffer quotes the following email* received from a reader of his:

"I am secretary of a hitherto successful recreation ground, run on voluntary efforts alone (sufficiently well to have received the Queen's Award for Voluntary Service recently). Our only source of finance, without which we cannot possibly survive, is our social club ... Trade has already dropped because of the smoking ban."

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* http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2007/07/11/do1101.xml

[David Moss]

FAILED 21/7 BOMBERS JAILED FOR AT LEAST 40 YEARS*

In one of life's little ironies, these ghastly people will be able to smoke in an enclosed public space for the next 40 years while we shan't.

The incentives (of the smoking ban) so far:

1. Keep smoking if you want to become leader of the Labour Party.

2. Keep smoking if you want to avoid a lifetime of broccoli and going to the gym.

3. Keep smoking if you want to avoid floods, keep interest rates down and fund the NHS.

4. Move to Stoke-on-Trent if you want to keep smoking. But hurry, while house prices remain affordable. (Did Stoke-on-Trent suffer during the recent floods? I don't think so.)

5. Sell shares in brewers and pub chains.

6. Buy shares in tissue manufacturers in advance of the snuff craze. Consider shares in the manufacturers of brass spitoons in advance of the fashion for chewing tobacco.

7. Give up smoking to bring charities to their knees.

8. Or just have done with it and go to prison. It can't be that difficult. Everyone else seems to be able to manage it.

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* http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article2058495.ece

[David Moss]

FIRST CASUALTY SUFFERED BY THE SMOKERS' LIBERATION FRONT [1]

"A pub landlord is to become the first in England to be prosecuted for allowing smokers to light up.

Hamish Howitt had told customers at the Happy Scots Bar, Blackpool, that he would pay any fine they incurred for smoking there. Now Blackpool council officers have served seven [2] summonses on him."

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1. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/crime/article2112453.ece
2. The maximum number of happy Scots allowed in Blackpool at a time.